Director keeps Edinburgh waiting for 2046

In a blow to the Edinburgh international film festival, its closing movie, Wong Kar-Wai's 2046, has been pulled because it is not finished.

As soon as the festival's programme was announced earlier this summer, there were rumours in the film world that the Hong Kong director had not given his permission for the screening or finished the work to his satisfaction.

But these rumours were denied at the time by the festival and by Tartan Films, 2046's distributor.

Wong is famous for re-editing and 2046 has become notorious as the never-finished film. It was eagerly awaited at the 2003 Cannes and Venice film festivals but audiences were disappointed at both events.

A version of the movie was shown at this year's Cannes festival in May but even then the arrival of the film was so last-minute that its morning press screening had to be scratched, with the reels coming from a laboratory in Paris just in time for the evening's gala showing.

Shane Danielson, the festival's artistic director, said: "Obviously it's disappointing, but it's not entirely unforeseen. Ultimately, this is just one of the pitfalls of working with eccentric artistic geniuses. But we wish him well with the film which, when it's finally finished, will probably be even more amazing than it already is."

Hamish McAlpine, managing director of Tartan Films, said: "I am devastated that the film will now not be shown at Edinburgh ... Shane was visionary in his choice of the movie as the closing film, but I guess artists will be artists. Having seen a recent edit of the film in Hong Kong, the film is getting better day by day. I can't wait to see Wong Kar-Wai's final version of the film."

Two weeks ago, Takuya Kimura, the Japanese star and one of the film's cast, was seen in Hong Kong, apparently working for 20 hours on the film.

According to the Straits Times, a Singapore daily, Wong was also seen there with the film's production designer, William Chang.

The talk in Hong Kong is that 2046 will not be completed before its scheduled general release there in the autumn.

2046 is set in 60s Hong Kong. Tony Leung plays a sacked newspaper editor who seduces prostitutes, one of whom lives in room 2046 of a hotel. He moves in next door and begins writing sci-fi novels about a futuristic city called 2046. The number is also a reference to the year that Hong Kong will be assimilated into China.

In the version shown at Cannes, it was described by the New York Times as teasing "the boundary of incomprehensibility. It is a series of moods, nuances and gorgeous moments - seductions, couplings, tearful partings - with the usual connective tissue left out or implied in title cards and voice-overs".

Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian's film critic, described it as "an absorbingly mysterious, richly sensuous film".

It was tipped for the Palme D'Or, eventually losing out to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

The replacement film for the festival, Untold Scandal, a remake of Dangerous Liaisons by Korean director E J-Yong, is a much lower-profile work, which will bring the festival less kudos than if Wong had completed 2046 in time for the screening.

Mr Danielson said: "We're extremely proud to feature Untold Scandal as our closing night film. The great thing is that this gives us an opportunity to give a more prominent showcase to it - a film that's every bit as poetic, sexy and visually ravishing as 2046, and as such, fully deserving of the closing night slot."